Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-06-09
COST OF GOVERNMENT.
The Vast Sum Necessary to Cover the EXpen-
ditures of the Nation.


Youths Companion.
A statement has been made up showing
the amounts appropriated by Congress
at its late session for the support of the
Government for the year which will end
June 80, 1888. The total sum is about
two hundred forty eight and a half mil
lion dollars. There we're two appropriate
ion bills that failed to become law-the
River and Harbor bill, which the Presid-
ent neither approved nor vetoed, aud the
Deficiency bill, which passed both branch
es of Congress, but could not be prepared
for the Presidents signature before the
time of adjournment. If We add the
fourteen million dollars appropriated by
those two bills, and forty-eight millions
required to pay the interest on the pub
lie debt to the sum above mentioned, we
have three hundred and ten million dol
lars as the amount deemed by Congress
necessary to meet the current annual ex-
penses of Government.
The corresponding expenditures dur
ing Washington's administration averag
ed less than six million dollars a year.
The population is fifteen times as great
as it was then; expenditure is fifty times
as great. Yet this is not an evidence of
extravaganza, because the government
does for the people vastly more than it
did in the time of Washington.
The large single item of appropriation
is that for pensions. No less sum than
eighty three million dollars is granted
for this purpose for the fiscal year. This
sum alone would have paid all the ordin-
airy expenses of the Government, except
interest, for the first eighteen years under
the Constitution, or until 1903. Next
comes the post-office, taking ffty-fve
and half millions will be derived from
postage and other revenues of the depart
ment. The change for the army is a lit
tie less than twenty-four million. The
appropriation for the navy is larger than
usual. almost twenty-five million, because
some new ships are to be built. Most of
the salaries paid to officers of the United
States, and to Congress, are provided for
in the Legislative, Executive and Judicial
Appropriation act. This act covers sum
of twenty and half million more than
it was twelve years ago, when the populat-
ton was much smaller than it is now. A
great variety of matters are provided for
under the bill known as the Sunday Civil
Appropriations act-the mint; construct
ing, repairing and warming and lighting
public buildings; the live saving sevivce;
lighthouses: collecting the revenue; pay
ing back wrongly assessed; and great
many others. This act appropriated
twenty two million, this year, about the
usual amount.
We have thus accounted for all but
about seventeen million dollars of the ap-
preparations, which are disposed of thus:
Indians, five millions; District of Colum-
bia, four millions; Ministers and Consuls,
abroad, one million and half; Military
Academy, half a million, and the rest for
miscellaneous small purposes.
Among these are some abuses in the
Government. The public service is on the
whole, conducted in manner that will
compare creditably, for economy and
efficiency, with that of any other country
in the world. For example, the British
civil service, which is so much praised,
costs nearly thirteen million dollars, or
twice as much as the CORES Onding
service in this country, although the pop
ulation of the United States outnumbers
that of the United Kingdom by twenty
five million.
1t is quite beyond the bonds of human
possibility it expend the three hundred
millions and more which the Government
pays out every year without some of it
going to waste, by being payed to people
who are not entitled to it, but we succeed
as well as any other country in limiting
these abuses. This success, however,
should not have the effect of leading the
people to cease their efforts still to
improve the service. We must always
remember that an increase of expendi-
lures, and that the march of civilization
itself is constantly adding to the require
ments which the people make their Gov
eminent, while every new function of
Government adds to the cost of maintain
ing it.